Budget 2026: Minister seeks funds for psychiatric ICU in Central Mental Hospital

Minister of state for mental health, Mary Butler, said additional funding was being sought to begin opening the intensive care rehabilitation unit at the Central Mental Hospital in 2026. Picture: Colin Keegan/Collins

Funding is being sought in Tuesday’s budget to commence the delayed opening of a psychiatric unit in the Central Mental Hospital which could "significantly reduce" the lengthy waiting times for severely ill prisoners to be admitted.

Minister of state for mental health, Mary Butler, said that “additional funding” was being sought to begin opening the intensive care rehabilitation unit in 2026.

The ICRU is located in the Central Mental Hospital complex in north Dublin.

The CMH, the main part of the National Forensic Mental Health Service, was due to open by the end of 2019, but for various reasons, including covid, did not start operation until November 2022.

The 170-bed complex includes a 130-bed CMH, a 30-bed ICRU and a 10-bed Forensic Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service unit.

But the latter two units have not opened and a total of 112 of the 130 beds at the CMH are being used.

Ms Butler told the Dáil that she had secured additional funding of €2.1m under Budget 2025 to open the remaining 18 beds in the CMH this year.

She said this would bring the hospital to its full operational complement of 130 beds. Ms Butler added: 

Recruitment is progressing for the 41 WTEs [whole time equivalents] funded, with 34 of the posts accepted and at various points of onboarding and final checks. 

In relation to the ICRU, she said that “additional funding” was being sought in the Estimates process to “commence opening” the ICRU next year, adding that this would proceed on a “phased basis”.

A Council of Europe watchdog, which published an inspection report on Ireland last July, said the opening of the ICRU was “likely to significantly reduce waiting times” for admission to the CMH for severely-ill prisoners.

It said that these prisoners face “lengthy waits” in prison for transfer.

Ms Butler said that once the ICRU was in place it would be evaluated in order to inform the developments of similar models regionally, in line with the national mental health policy Sharing the Vision 2020-2030.

In 2021 the Mental Health Commission said ICRUs should be developed in the south and west of the country, similar to what’s available in England and Wales.

Ms Butler said that the CMH entailed a capital cost in excess of €200m, which, she said, was one of the most modern of its type in the world.

She said the bed capacity in the new CMH increased from around 95 beds in Dundrum to 112 when relocation took place. She added: 

These 112 operational beds across nine units provide high and medium secure care for patients with major mental illness and associated violent behaviour.

"There are 88 beds for men, 14 for women, and 10 beds for men with both mental health and intellectual and developmental difficulties. The hospital receives admissions from prisons, courts and approved mental health centres nationally."

Ms Butler said clinical care was delivered by nine multidisciplinary teams, each led by a consultant forensic psychiatrist.

Separately, justice minister Jim O’Callaghan said that the outreach service provided by the CMH in Irish prisons had a case load of 341 people, with a further 51 awaiting assessment.